Learn how to lobby — fast!
There is some irony in the recalls of parallel-traded Zyprexa and Plavix (p635) just before the closure
of the consultation of the Office of Fair Trading “short market study” into the distribution of medicines in the UK (p637). Pfizer — now using UniChem exclusively to distribute its products — said that one of the main reasons for introducing the arrangement was to protect its supplies from counterfeit medicines. Its rationale seems to be partly supported by the recalls.
Nevertheless, there remain unintended consequences of Pfizer’s
decision that will need to be addressed if other pharmaceutical companies
opt for similar arrangements in order to guarantee the integrity of their
supply chain. Included in that is the impact of multiple deliveries on
community pharmacies, a point alluded to by Community Pharmacy Scotland.
At a time when everyone with an interest in pharmacy — the Government,
the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee, the Royal Pharmaceutical
Society and many others — is advocating the shift from pharmacists
as suppliers of medicines to pharmacists as providers of clinical services,
the fragmentation of the supply system is not good news, particularly
for small independents. Every time a delivery is made, someone in the
pharmacy has to deal with it and put it away: twice a day is manageable,
but four times a day is becoming the norm and, with the potential for
ever more deliveries being imposed on pharmacies as other pharmaceutical
companies follow Pfizer’s lead, the efforts to augment dispensing
and supply with other services recedes.
Any pharmacist worried about the impact of these new arrangements should
heed the advice
of Jim Devine, Labour MP for Livingston, West Lothian
(PJ, 26 May, p601). Make an appointment with an MP and learn how to lobby — fast!
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Let us not end up with a poodle
Douglas Simpson, former editor of The Pharmaceutical Journal and member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Council, is an angry man. Speaking
at the West Metropolitan branch meeting last week (see p656), he questions what right government advisers have to dictate how the Society will develop once its regulatory powers have been removed. He suggests that if the profession is not careful it will end up with a “body akin to a poodle”.
This, too, is an opportunity to take the argument back to Government and use
the parliamentary network of MPs to bring pressure to bear. This is a call to
those pharmacists who vote in Society Council elections and who, presumably,
are the ones who care most about its future.
Write to your MP! If you do, each MP should receive around 15 letters complaining
about the way the Society is being treated. That counts as a campaign.
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